What is intelligence?

Intelligence is defined as general cognitive problem-solving skills. A mental ability involved in reasoning, perceiving relationships and analogies, calculating, learning quickly… etc. Earlier it was believed that there was one underlying general factor at the intelligence base (the g-factor),

General intelligence, also known as g factor, refers to the existence of a general intelligence that influences performance on mental ability measures.

The existence of general intelligence was first described by Charles Spearman in 1904. According to Spearman, this g factor was responsible for overall performance on mental ability tests and can be measured and expressed by a single number, such as an IQ score.

Other definitions are:

“Intelligence is what you do when you don’t know what to do.”

“Intelligence is a hypothetical idea which we have defined as being reflected by certain types of behavior.”